Only 24 hours in one day :)

How much can you pack into a normal day ? Take up endurance rallying and find out just how much is possible.
For example yesterday alarm goes at 5.30 ( strangely not Julie's although she's positive she set it !!!)
Load the car, eat some sort of breakfast, check out. Drive out of town, arrive at the first time trial and by 7.15 you are on the start line of a cinder race track about to have the time of your life. The object is one flying lap, fast as you can. Just for fun the organisers have chucked in a few chicanes. We love it Molly comes an amazing 9th. Which we are over the moon with.
Now nearly 8.00! Off we go for about 100 Km to another flat out time trial. This time over some very rough ground, we have to cross an old river bed. We don't like this one much, Molly is too low. We come in 2 minutes late. Still not bad. Now its about 9.00. Another 70 km drive on mixed roads to the Chilean border. After all our worries about the Chilean border staff being on strike/go slow we sail through, thanks to the skill of the organisers.
We now drive to the hotel Explora Salto Chico in Torres del Paine. This is along a dirt road only about 25 km but takes as we have just entered a National Park which without doubt offers some of the most stunning scenery anywhere in the world. Every corner we turn is another Wow and photo stop.
We arrive at the hotel, still only midday!
This has got to be one of the best hotels we have ever stayed in. I wish the photos would load but the Internet is rubbish. I am writing this looking out of the room window, across a clear blue glacier lake, majestic mountains all around and a huge Condor circling over the rocks by the waterfall. 
Quick bite to eat and at 3 o'clock we are off on a 'short' hike. We should have realised it was not that short or easy when we were given a survival lecture and accompanied by 3 highly qualified guides. We walk up for about 1.5 hours to the top of a rock called Condor Point. The wind up here is so strong that its nearly impossible to walk. It is possible to hold your coat out like a wing and lean at 45 degrees into the wind. Looks really cool. Not quite so cool when the wind slows and you fall base over apex into the sharp thorned bushes.
Back down the hill, back to the hotel. Cup of tea. Attend a lecture about the area and all the hikes we can go on tomorrow. It's now 7.00. Drink in the bar. Dinner time. 
Julie and I are new to this rally world, but we thought we had got the hang of it.
During dinner we observe a rallying tradition we were unaware of. It seems that you have to drink a glass of wine or 2 and then the gentlemen on the table have to swop clothes!! Shirts and trousers!! Luckily no one had gone commando and even more luckily I can't load the pictures.
It's now about 9.30, time for Andy and the Headgaskets to entertain us (that's what Andy says) 
Julie and I retire hurt at about 10.30.
It's now 8 in the morning and I think the music has stopped.
So that's a fairly typical endurance rally day. I feel another quote coming on about rallying
'come'n have a go if you think your tough enough'
It's just bloody amazing ( ok Mum I know 'no need to swear David' )

All the crews are still together and apart from the early car failures all the cars are making it and having a ball.
Someone pointed out there are only 3 more days driving, where did all that time go.

Titanic moment !

Today we have pretty much recovered from the long hard dusty drives. We are nearly talking to each other and the sun is out.
One of the reasons for coming on this amazing adventure was to visit the Perito Merino Glacier.
This is about a 70 Km drive along Lake Argentino. After the last couple of days this distance doesn't even count as a warm up. Off we go, Molly creaking and groaning (bit like her owners) we arrive at the entrance to the nature park, pay our £10 entrance fee and drive for another 27 km.
Along the way Molly has a bit of a fright, two massive Condors fly over her, they are bigger than her and they seem to think the tyre on the roof may be road kill. (It's quite amazing what Molly thinks)
Anyway we reassure her that everything is ok and continue the drive along beside the blue, blue lake and suddenly we do our first Titanic quote. 'ICEBERG, ICEBERG!!'
We then drive round the corner and the second quote comes instantly to our lips ' 
'bloody hell it's bigger than we thought'
We have come face to face with The Perito Merino Glacier.
It absolutely takes your breathe away. We spend the next 3 hours walking some 4 Km just starring at this majestic sight. It's not just the sight but the incredible sounds it makes. Just think big thunder claps and then there is the sight of huge chunks of ice falling off and causing small tidal waves. 
We are so pleased we were able to see this on a clear blue day.
We arrive back at the hotel and find that the rest of the crews have arrived all safe and sound.
Good to have a full pack again.
We give Molly another thorough check over, yep all four wheels are in the right place, we can see out of the windscreen and just for good measure we check the oil. Molly is still pinking which is slowing us down a bit. We will have a look tomorrow with the help of the expert mechanics!!
We hear that the border guard strike may now just be a go slow, so the good news is that we will continue on into Chile and hopefully the end of the earth:)
What a journey this has been.
PS
I am not a film buff and the Titanic quotes may not be 100% accurate :)
PPS sorry for the lack of photos but the Internet connection is so sloooow, they will not load

1300 Klm and a slight touch of wind !

Sorry no blog yesterday or was it the day before.
Just taking a step back to two nights ago Team Molly won their first medal of the event :) hurrah!
A medal is awarded to crews who win a race stage in their class. A team can only win a medal once on the rally. We have had our moment of glory, well done Team Molly :)

We have just had two very very long days and they sort of roll into one another.
We started day 12 with a visit to the local race track at Esquel to run 2 sets of three timed laps, huge fun and everyone including the ' we are not competitive'  got a touch of the old ' red mist' and went flat out. Molly loved it and did very well, times of 3.22 and 3.19 putting her 11th over all.
Just to put the length of these days into perspective this race meeting was from 7.00 in the morning followed by 600+ Km of hard driving.
Stunning scenery along the way but not the route the rally was meant to take. Apparently there is a strike at the Argentina / Chile border. The organisers were very keen on us not getting stuck in Chile.
The organisers have been working flat out to re arrange the route and accommodation for a 40 + group. Looks like they have done a good job.
The first part of the new route is a 600 Km drive over some pretty bad gravel roads but we arrive at a 'quaint' lake side hotel. The hotel is very clean and tidy and they have tried very hard to look after us. It's not big enough for all so some crews have ended up in not such good surroundings. The only problem is that the hotel is not of the greatest construction and as one competitor put it ' if you try hard enough you can see through the walls' ! Anyway once the guy in the room 6 along from us had stopped snoring we all got a little sleep.
Mutterings were being heard about not having an extra rest day here and instead pushing on to a much better hotel in El Calafate only 680 Km away. 
The rally crews are split on this idea. In the end 13 crews decide to go for it, without mechanic back up.
We decided to join this group and spend an extra day glacier spotting rather than staring through walls :)
This journey is where the touch of wind comes in.
Some of the roads are fantastic. Julie and I don't count goats this time we count cars and in 6 hours we see 7 cars and a bus. We know how to have fun :)
Some of the roads were terrible, may be fine in a Toyota land cruiser but poor Molly has 
been  really struggling. Just to add insult to injury while you are battling along cart tracks there is a brand new shiny tarmac road 10 feet away just dying to be used, but it's not open, how frustrating.
We are driving under clear blue skies and across the highest part of Patagonia. Fantastic scenery again. We decide to get out of the car and take some photos. I can't open the car door. Julie is very helpful by suggesting perhaps I should unlock it. But that's not the problem, the wind is so strong I am physically not strong enough to push the door against it. The wind dies down, I open door and wish I hadn't. Unbelievably cold and strong wind still blowing, I can't hold the camera still to take any shots.
It's the first time we have driven in wind of this force. Imagine a dead straight road, no traffic and the fastest Molly can go is just touch over 80 Km (50mph) flat out in 3 gear. 
This is a 680 Km day on rough roads and 130 Km (80mph) winds, a little tiring but very satisfying when you stop. The winds were so strong the airport here was closed.
The remaining rally crews have this journey to do today. The wind is still blowing. We wish them the very best of luck.
When they arrive the rally will all be back together and the organisers can stop trying to herd cats!
All the remaining cars seem to be running well.
Tomorrow we have our extra rest day and we are going to go to the glacier. This should be one of the highlights off the rally.

A confusing day, and over half way

A very confusing day and a very exciting day. We woke up to clear blue sky with a light dusting of frost, the sun bouncing off the crystal clear lake, eagles soaring above and snow capped mountains as the back drop ( used to be an estate agent, this sort of gush is easy:) )

We headed out of the car park with some very strange banging and crashing going on at the back end of Molly. I got out and checked all four wheels, kicked the exhaust pipes and decided all was well.

Surprisingly my expert opinion was correct and Molly performed well all day.

From the hotel car park, we had a leisurely drive to a go kart track. Here we had 3 timed laps, we tried our best and we await the results. Then a timed section on open roads, great twisting empty roads, Molly clocks her fastest time of 131 kph and we arrive early at the time control.

We have to drive through a river to start the next timed stage, the water did not quite come up to the door handles, but I am sure it was close :)

This next time section is 8.7 Klm in 7 min on roads best tackled in a range rover. We do finish it and again await results, anywhere in the top 32 will be good.

The NEXT stage is again over goat like passes travelling some 17 km in 25 min.

The last one is 14 km in 12 min all on the same gravel ( that's what they call it) roads.

After all that we have a little drive of 265 km to the hotel. This drive is on the main road and is just fab.

The confusing bit is that one minute you are in desert like plains with the odd wild horse charging about and then you drive into a town with a snow man in the middle of it.

Molly is the smallest car ( I know you know that) but she is also the lowest. Some of the rocks we are going over at about 80 kph are nearly as tall as she is. This makes the journey a little noisy. But the rattles in the car are getting quieter as all the bits drop off.

Tonight's hotel is a million miles away from the luxury of last nights.  

If Carlsberg did hotels and views last nighwould have been it. This one is closer to Watneys Red Barrel 

I thought Patagonia was a clothing shop :)

We have arrived in a smashing place called the Llao Llao Hotel, Spa Patagonia AND wait for it, Golf resort. This has got to be one of the most stunning golf courses I have seen.
If the weather is good tomorrow we might get nine holes in, think the clubs are in the back of the car somewhere :)
We started the day in bright sunshine but had to battle through some pretty heavy rain and very strong winds. According to our local helpers the wind will only get stronger as we head south.
A lot of the driving today was on various grades of gravel roads. Some were perfect for Molly and we belted along, others were better for a JCB and not so pleasant, but we arrived on time and in one piece.

Couple of rallying tips we have picked up and are proving very useful are
Always smell the petrol spout the attendant is about to fill your car with. Two vintage cars have ended up with tanks full of diesel!!! Luckily no harm done to either car.
The other is don't let your bag with your passport in it, out of your sight. One poor crew had theirs pinched and that was the end of the rally.

The above part of the blog was written yesterday afternoon, when we were tired, hungry, covered in dust and a bit scratchy.
Last night the true rally fraternity came out to play.
We were introduced to a new game called 'pudding pouters' the rules are quite simple, you line up a creme brûlée  on the table, bend your head over it, suck like hell and eat the pudding in one go.
The undisputed champion was Hugo or 'Hoover' to his mates. Hugo's piece de resistance was to Hoover up his opponents puddings while they were still warming up. I am not sure the head chef was impressed but we all were. Should be on UTube :)
From this we went along for a little sing song with Andy the mechanic leading the way on guitar.  We 

all got the words on our phones or iPads and were in perfect harmony, bit like X factor does 

Patagonia. Highlight of the evening a rendition of a well known ballad, written in 1972 called 'Living next door to Alice' performed by Andy on guitar, Sadie on head gaskets and everyone singing with mighty gusto. Probably the funniest rude version of any song I have ever heard.

It was great to see everyone thoroughly enjoying themselves after such a long day.

Today is a rest day. We have cleaned Molly's windows, shovelled the sand out and cleaned the air filters. Andy has had to re set the points again, but the little girl is still flying along.

We have unfortunately lost 4 crews with terminal car problems. Such a shame and really heart breaking for them.

The hotel we're staying in is stunning surrounded by awesome scenery, the food is great and the sun is shining.  Do we enjoy rallying??? You bet :)

Tomorrow is an interesting day, we get to race around a go kart track. Now let me think, who has got the smallest car? May do OK.

Final bit of news is that Team Tigre is still in the number one spot, bloody amazing (sorry again mum). If we win this team competition I may have to go and stand in the naughty corner for swearing too strongly.

Cheers

David, Julie and Molly.

Day 5 from Argentina to Chile

Well we have arrived in Chile, and boy what a road to arrive by.

We left the low grounds of Mendoza and half an hour into the journey you could see this enormous rock wall covered in snow, our first sighting of the Andes. 

                                      

' Wow, look at that snow, that must be incredibly high' I say. 
'You're about to find out' says a slightly nervous Julie.
We start climbing and climbing. The driving is totally different to the long flat roads of 
previous days. These are like lovely Alpine roads with no traffic and views to take your breath away.
It's not possible to put in words the sheer scale of the area we are driving through, absolutely awesome!

We have a couple of interesting moments with lorries (must get some better distance specs)




 and eventually get to the top of the road.
We have a Garmin in Molly, it's not too great at directions but it does have an altimeter.

The altimeter showed 10???? This is almost as high as the highest peaks in the Alps and Ben Nevis is 4409 feet. Molly has driven all the way up without missing a beat. However the driver and navigator were puffing and wheezing something alarming, and that's not because of the fifty shades of rallying :)

Thanks to some excellent organisation we pass through the border from Argentina to Chile without a hitch.
The Chilean customs officer was quite insistent that he looked in the boot and was quite alarmed to find an engine, laughs all round and through we go.

500 metres from the border the first challenging road of the rally.

This is Chile's equivalent of the Stelvio, but it's being resurfaced and the safety barriers are random cones, all good fun, an amazing drive.
We pass through some great scenery to the only test of the day.
Having 'cleared' the test the day before we were quite confident of doing the same this time.
However the organisers had a different idea. The start consisted of a very steep climb, which was  1st and 2nd  gear for Molly, after about 1st Km out of 9 and still going up, it was obvious we wouldn't make our time. When we did get to the top Molly breathed a sigh of relief and then off we went down the other side, maybe we could make the time up. Halfway down the brakes called enough and we had to ease up, but we did have a really good go and ended up 'only' 3 minutes over time. Making us the 11th fastest, which we are highly delighted with, well done Molly.

We are camped out in a ramshackle place called The Grand Hyatt, Santiago. This rallying can really take a heavy toll on your waistline. 
We are having great fun and getting to know more of the other crews and their amazing cars.  Great bunch of people from all walks of life and interesting stories from rallies around the world.
Tomorrow is the first day of the gravel road sections. This should prove interesting, it will all depends on what version of 'gravel' we get.
Tonight we are off to a cocktail party hosted by the Team America in the Presidential Suite, where else :) I've always wanted to act like a rock star, now's my chance.
Hopefully it won't get too messy and I'll be able to drive tomorrow.

Day 3 a wow and phew day :)

Day 3 a wow and whew day.
Today was a long day. We had to drive from Cordoba to Mendoza  just over 600 km.
It was also the first day of the the real road tests. 
In the last (and only rally) we had done road sections as average speed trials. This means you drive from point A to B trying to maintain an average speed and arrive on the time the organisers have set for the course. Not fast and sometimes a bit boring because the time allowed was a bit slow but technical and puts all sized, aged cars on a level playing field.
We now know that's not the case for this rally.

You have a set time to start and a set time to finish but you go as fast as you can in between. If you arrive outside your given arrival time you get penalties and if you arrive inside your time you get a big pat on the back and no penalties.
Having bored you with the technical stuff we move on to the first test. A hill climb, we start driving quite sensibly ;) thinking it would not be hard. we have to do 6 km in 8 minutes. After a while Julie points out we now have 5 km to do in 4 minutes, oops, next comment is you have 2 km to do in 40 sec. In front is a learner driver group of young motorcyclists and another competitor. The bikers have now learnt some new hand signals and the other competitor should be talking to us by the end of the rally. We get a 2 minute penalty. Could have been a lot worse.

The 2nd test is an easy drive over to test 3, no drama no penalties. 
Test 3 we are told is know as a ' blat' meaning drive as fast as you can on a public, but deserted road, and have some fun. I am not used to driving over the national speed limit ;) 
but on this occasion we have a real good go.
It's an amazing piece of road all sweeping bends and only two short straight bits in 8 km. We do manage to keep Molly on the grey stuff and do what is know as ' clear' this section. Very very happy with that, not every crew manage it. 
Memo to self don't punch the air in hard topped car.
So that was part of the wow, but the real part of the wow is that this was all at about 4000 feet in the most stunning scenery. We carry on driving up till we reach 7300 feet. This is Condor land or sky, really looking forward to seeing one of these huge birds of prey. We have seen lots of Buzzards :)
We come down from the mountains and then have a very long very, very hot section through desert like terrain for about 400 km, this is the phew bit. It was about 39 degrees and mile after mile of flat empty countryside on arrow straight roads.

To make the journey more exciting Julie and I decided to count Goats, we got up to 2,397,578 and then would you believe it we lost count and had to go back and start again!
All the cars finished this real long, tiring, fun day. The mountains we climbed today are fractionally more than half the height of the ones to come ( that's about 13,000 feet).
The rally is now in full swing and great fun, especially today which is a rest day and seems to involve wine tasting against the clock :) Julie has been in strict training for this and is hopeful of a good result. Her carry home crew is on stand by :)
Tomorrow is Mendoza to Santiago 369 km.
One last thing we wondered why the insurance was so high for this event. Yesterday we started to understand. 3 mega crashes around us ( and other competitors) one involving a car and a lone lamp post, another a dust cart crushing a car it had not seen, and another where a driver seemed to be taking photos of an old car and drove straight into the back of the car in front.
Touch wood all the rally cars are scratch free and long may that be the case.
Off to the wine tasting :)




David Harrison
01732 750449

Day 2 all going well.

Day 3.
I think the Romans must have visited South America at some point and given them lessons on how to build arrow straight roads that go on and on and on. 
We have driven over 300 Km today and I think the only times I turned the steering wheel was to pull in for a much needed comfort stop and the next time for food at a way side cafe down a dirt track. The cafe served fantastic fresh cut ham and local cheese rolls. I think the owner thought all his Christmas's had come at once. The whole rally found this place and help deplete his ham and cheese stock. He never stopped smiling.

The good thing about today's long drive is that we have arrived in Cordoba, and we can see the hills which will be the main part of the rally in the distance. 

Tomorrow is a huge day of driving we have 2 timed special sections and then a quick drive of some 555 Km to Mendoza. Time allowed for this is about 11 hours.
Julie has gone into deep depression having just worked out we need to be up and going by 6.30 ON A SUNDAY. 

Who needs a sat nav?

The best news of the day is that the two cars which failed to make the start have caught us up and are back in the rally. Amazing job by the mechanics.
Molly is going well. A bit too well when I tried to come off the road and go onto the rough track for our food stop. The throttle got stuck wide open, making an interesting entrance into the dusty car park. The carpet had slipped and got stuck under the throttle pedal. My engineering prowess showed itself again and I managed to re fit the carpet all by myself. Molly is now back under control.
It has been a very hot day, and very windy.
It's quite fantastic to see the Vintage cars and crew taking it all in their stride and setting 
some very fast times.
The scenery has been a bit nondescript but we have seen several ' sand twisters' or 'sand spouts'. One coming across the road right in front of us. This is a bit like driving into thick fog, you can't see a thing. Fog disappears as you drive through it, sand on the other hand wants to become your best friend and join you in the car and coat every bit of clothing you have. Not so pleasant.
We were meant to have another race round a circuit today but unfortunately it was cancelled.
The results of yesterday's track session showed Molly as 11th fastest, which we are very pleased about.
Another fun day and the Andes to look forward to.
PS Julie is still reading her 50 shades of Rallying. This one has got diagrams and some very odd instructions. She says it's her Tulip book :)
PPS By the lift in the lobby of our hotel it says ' in case of earthquake take the stairs'  think it should say ' run like bloody hell' and we're on the 16th floor:)

Day 1 over and done with, much happier now :)

Well that's the end of day 1. We started in Tigre and have ended in a city called Rosario about 320 km. The start was fun with the first car Author and Anna in a 1927 Oldsmobile.

We are staying in the Pullman Hotel and Casino just outside the city. I can see Rosario from our window and that's close enough. 
The driving today was pretty easy and a bit boring, being on long flat highways, however there was a terrific cross wind which caused some major bad hair days :) Personally I couldn't see what all the fuss was about :)

Julie got so bored that she did a bit of reading. I nearly went of the road when I looked across and saw she was reading (no not 50 shades of rallying) but ' the beginners guide to rallying! I thought she had done this before and knew how it all worked. ( the rallying not the 50 Shades bit)
At the end of the day we were let loose on a full blown racing circuit. We had to set the fastest time we could. It will be interesting to see the results, some of the Fangio Chevrolets are incredibly fast. Think we have done ok, but all the time there is this little voice saying ' it's only the first day, look after Molly and her tyres'.
Results should be released later today.
Tomorrow is pretty much the same, with a circuit at the end. The next day the fun begins as we head up into ' them there hills'
We are both well, really enjoying it and pleased the first day is over.
Bring it on :)

Molly Porsche is back in safe hands

Yesterday we collected our cars. They were in a large secure compound about an hour out of town. It was great to see Molly again.

All in one piece, just a little dusty and ready to go, or would have been if we had had some petrol :( think it must have evaporated ;) anyway managed to get to the nearest garage and fill her up and off we go onto the South America motorway system. Actually pretty good, the lanes all have different speed limits and a slowest speed limit. Every 5 or 6 miles there are speed traps.

We have all got our cars back to the hotel. Bit of drama in the underground car park with two cars needing some fairly major surgery and worse than that I lost my glasses. Found my glasses but one of the cars was still being worked on when we went to bed. Hope they can fix it.

Today we have to drive back out of the city to a car museum. We will leave the cars overnight and

start the rally from there tomorrow. Good idea as it means we should get out onto the open roads quite quickly.

We had our rally briefing last night. This rally is a lot more competitive than our previous one. There are 16 timed sections, quite a few around race circuits, think they could be quite fun :)

We were given our map books and times for each day. One section has an average speed of 40 Km 

per hour. Cor that's a bit easy you foolishly say to yourself. One look at the map book and it shows the road is coming down from a ski resort! This gives  you the idea that 40 will be quite fast enough. Thank you.

Sunday is a long day we need to drive for 11 hours covering some 630 Km on not particularly good roads. However it's not the longest day, that's towards the end of the rally.

We were also told that a LOT of the roads are gravel, not the smooth Tarmac roads I had viewed on Google. Some of the cars do not seem to have sump guards so that could prove interesting.

We have got great back up with mechanics, Dr and back office team dealing with the huge amount of paper work for border crossings etc. looks like we are in safe hands. We will do our best this time to try and not find out how good they are :)

The rally office has updated its website, there is now a results page, blog and photos. I can't see the photos on an Apple :(

The link is

http://www.endurorally.com/pages/vintage-cape-horn-2013-reports

Rally starts tomorrow. We are worse than a 10 year old on Christmas Eve :)

Cheers

David Harrison

01732 750449